Warning To Teesside Teens Over Intimate Pictures

3 December 2014, 06:26 | Updated: 3 December 2014, 06:30

Cleveland Police are working with Head teachers across Teesside to warn young people about uploading intimate photos on social media or websites.

It comes after police were made aware of internet sites containing photos and moving images of (in some cases) underage children, apparently created with the young person's consent.

Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Best, Head of Crime & Criminal Justice, is reminding young people tempted to place such pictures on the web that once photos are out there, they are available for all to see.  

He told Heart:
"This issue is part of our wider strategy to provide information to the public, to help them to be safe online.  

We are now liaising with Head teachers across our Force area and asking them to help spread awareness amongst young people and their teachers, parents and carers of the implications of young people taking intimate images and then sharing them online.

It is illegal for under-18s to take or share an "indecent" picture of themselves or to look at or share someone else's.  Young people are also reminded that indecent photographs do not have to be naked pictures.

The internet is a public place and if people do something embarrassing or criminal on one of our high streets, they would expect people to see them and potentially for consequences to follow.  Exactly the same is true of the internet - the difference however is that the high street will have a limited number of people present at any one time, the internet is available to billions of people all over the world and things are available for other people to see, potentially forever."